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Sunglasses, Cigarettes, and an Unpleasant Dog
"These men and their unpleasant dog were from some place we should not want to know." In a number of the visualisation exercises that Hester guides Oleta through, there are featured people observing her, wearing sunglasses and smoking cigarettes, accompanied by an "unpleasant" dog. The specific phrasing is repeated throughout not just Hester's narration, but later Roimata Mangakāhia's museum guides and the Pilot's black box cassettes. Michael Witten also noticed the presence of these kind of people around his office during his dictaphone notes to Amy. Freya makes reference to them when she recounts stories of the Cradles. Watching Oleta In one relaxation exercise produced by Hester for the Institute, possibly mimicking or directly resembling a real memory of Oleta's, there were two unsmiling men holding books (but not reading) in her peripheral vision. Hester said that they did work that ensured the safety and smiles of everybody else in the park. The two men were watching Oleta closely because of her interest in Nell, who bore a clear familial resemblance to her.Season 1, Cassette #3: Insomnia, Feet The two men and their dog are also mentioned to watch capoeira-inspired dancing in the park at the same time as Oleta. They did not indicate whether or not they knew that the dances were intended to train people covertly how to fight.Season 1, Cassette #7: Doubt, Head When Hester asked Oleta whether or not she remembered her in the coffee shop, she noticed two people walking on the sidewalk with an unpleasant dog.Season 1, Cassette #8: Awareness, Eyes The agents later followed Oleta and Nell when they went out to dinner together, and noted their activities as suspicious. This lead to Oleta being sent to the Institute.Season 1, Cassette #5: Focus, Nose One of the suggested memories that the implant between Oleta's rib and hip regulates is of "cigarette butts." This may refer to a specific memory that Oleta had regarding the men in suits, or it may have been intended by Hester to trigger the general memory of being watched.Season 1, Cassette #4: Sadness, Lungs Watching Hester (and the Pilot) This section contains spoilers for the Black Box bonus episodes After Hester helped Oleta escape from the Institute, she planned to quit her job and lie low for a while, until people with sunglasses, cigarettes, and an unpleasant dog no longer tailed her.Season 1, Cassette #10: Horopito On her way to Aotearoa, hitching rides with the Pilot, they mentioned hearing about the Institute and about men with sunglasses and cigarettes and unpleasant dogs. Hester requested they not talk any more about it.Black Box Cassette #1: PHL to PWM One night while out at dinner with the friends of the Pilot's that she was staying with, Hester noticed someone sitting at the next table over with sunglasses and an unpleasant dog. She insisted they leave, and spent the journey home looking over her shoulder. When she got on a flight with the Pilot the next day, they thought they saw someone with an unpleasant dog standing on the tarmac, and took the takeoff a little too fast.Black Box Cassette #2: PWM to MDW Once in Chicago, Hester spent three weeks evading the agents, and at one point the Pilot was forced to hide in a warehouse and hold their breath while two men with an unpleasant dog paced up and down. The Pilot later apologised to Hester for not taking her situation seriously enough, and remapped their flight plan.Black Box Cassette #3: MDW to YYZ In Toronto, Hester and the Pilot were involved in a car chase with the men in suits, where Hester drove (very well). They escaped without any major injury, although the Pilot boasted a bullet graze on their arm. They believed on the flight out that they had successfully evaded their pursuers, and the Pilot was prepared to commit some "light fraud" to give themselves an alibi of sorts.Black Box Cassette #4: YYZ to ATL However, the agents persisted, and the Pilot noted that although they weren't fast, they "just kept coming." This time, they were not with Hester when she had to flee, and in an attempt to find out what had happened they noticed somebody wearing sunglasses and sitting in a van watching them. They approached the van, pretending to ask for directions, but the person refused to speak to them and hardly reacted, deeply unsettling them. Moving on to Houston in mid-March (circa 1984), the men in suits were concentrated highly at the west end of the city, along with 'Missing Person' posters claiming that Hester was a suspected kidnap victim last seen August 1983, and that her family was worried about her. As a point of contrast, the Pilot is mentioned to have had a lovely dog named Danny.Black Box Cassette #5: HOU to LAX While in Montreal, the Pilot caught up with an old associate of their wife's, who told them that a few years ago, she had run up against a strange agency that acted like they could be government, but had no official ties to it. She said they "might as well be children playing dress up, for all the real authority they had." She said that she had observed over the last few weeks that the agency seemed to be looking for someone, coordinating their efforts into leaving a misleading trail of flyers, which they hoped would lure someone in. The agency knew that this person they were looking for was a woman, and which ride she hitched out of Atlanta, that she had spent time in Birmingham, and then was in Jackson, before finding someone to take her to New Orleans.Black Box Cassette #6: LAX to SEA, SEA to YUL, YUL to MSY The Pilot agreed to take one of the people in sunglasses as a passenger during a flight from Los Angeles to Seattle. The passenger had requested them specifically, waiting a whole week for them to become available for the flight when they could have got a ride with somebody else. The person was travelling with their dog, named possibly Widget or Gadget, who was kept in a cage in the cargo hold with their owner. The pilot cannot figure out what kind of dog it is, suggesting Greyhound, Setter, and Terrier but not be satisfied with any of those. During the flight, the Pilot asks the passenger to put out the cigarette they've just lit (with sympathy), for policy reasons. The Pilot mentions being unsure what it is that their organisation does - they had always assumed it was government work, but they're not sure why. They say they had a friend who claimed to know one of the men with cigarettes as a drinking buddy, but they were unconvinced, since she never seemed to find out what it was they actually did. They suppose there was no way to phrase the question that didn't come out as "Oh, you're one of the people who stands around with unpleasant dogs and cigarettes, what's the deal with that?" They hastily apologise for calling Widget-Gidget-Gadget unpleasant, but still ask what the deal is. Before they land, they remind the passenger not to smoke until they reach a designated smoking area and not to let the dog out of their cage before they leave the airport. They hope they don't see the passenger again.Black Box Cassette #8: LAX to SEA Watching Claudia In Claudia Atieno's piece "Sunglasses and Cigarettes" she depicted two men wearing sunglasses and smoking cigarettes, accompanied by an "unpleasant" dog. They were wearing five-buttoned suit jackets, different from World Council jackets or police uniforms. The dog was similar to a Doberman Pinscher. Roimata Mangakāhia commented that from the angle of the sketch and the framing, Atieno most likely drew this from the window of her Mwanza apartment. They stand tense and firm, and do not attempt to hide (at least not well) their observation of Atieno. "Sunglasses and Cigarettes" was featured in the Ohara Museum of Art in 1980, as well as the Karikari Contemporary in 1969. The two figures had also been present in some of Atieno's other work (three that Mangakāhia could recall in 1969), but mostly in the background. She noted the stiff way they held their cigarettes and how their glasses were poised on their noses. She also expressed how unpleasant their dog looked, with an asymmetrical face and underbite. She called the figures "ominous" but admitted to not knowing their origin. She mentioned that she had friends who believed they belonged to a "fringe" faction of the Society with covert agents and spies (which is illegal under the Citizen Espionage Act of 1951).Season 2, Cassette #0: Karikari Contemporary (1969) Roimata recalled men like these, smoking, sitting outside a small café in Cornwall where she and Claudia were spending the afternoon. She said she "did not believe them to be anything other than well-dressed men with a bad habit" but Claudia had insisted that they were watching her. Roimata suggested that if they were a threat they should lay low, although Claudia disagreed.Season 2, Cassette #8: Ohara Museum of Art (1980) Atieno would frequently invite people that she suspected were spying on her to her parties. She used to watch them back, and presumably try to demonstrate to them that she had nothing to hide (regardless of how true or false that might be).Season 2, Cassette #4: Bardo Museum (1975) Statespeople (markedly different from the smoking men and their dog) would often come to the Cornwall house to try to gather information, though in a "sociable and subtle" manner. Watching Michael On March 2, 1954, Michael thought he heard someone talking (possibly to Amy) outside his office. When he looked out of the window, he saw two people with a dog leaving the building. He thought he could smell cigarette smoke. Later in the day, when Amy returned with his hot dinner, he asked her if she saw someone with a dog standing outside, "a little too close" to the door, wearing a hat over their eyes. Michael reasoned that they were probably just lighting a cigarette, and checking the address of the building in their diary; he suggested this in an attempt to convince himself he was probably not being followed, but failed.Season 3, Reel #5: March 2, 1954 Throughout March, he observed that he and Vivienne were being followed. They had both noticed men in suits and hats, often with unpleasant dogs, standing in corners of markets not buying anything, seated in corners of restaurants not ordering anything, or riding buses without ever getting off. The evening of the 24th, relieved at the lack of conspicuous men tailing them, they had come home from a gallery opening and found the front door unlocked. Fearful of an intruder, they took knives from the kitchen and scoured the house, but found no intruder, nor anything missing - except Constance, their cat. Around 11pm, Constance reappeared, scratching at the front door, with her left ear cut away. Michael observed that it was a straight cut, like one from a razor or a pair of scissors. Believing this was a message from the men in suits on behalf of Karen Roberts, Michael went through his home office and found Leena Mäkinen's European ID card cut in half. On March 29, Michael saw two people standing outside the building and smoking. He claimed he recognised the dog as the "hideous" one that he had seen a few weeks ago. He said that when he first noticed them, he watched them for a few minutes, and their cigarettes burned forever. One of the men turned to look at him, and even though he was wearing sunglasses, Michael was sure that their eyes were locked for a full minute. Then the other one also turned to look, and he closed the blinds and sat down. Afraid to leave, he stayed in the office, peeking out the blinds once more and watching them turn to look at him one after the other, in the same order as before. Terrified, he jumped back from the window and found several (at least four) bottles of wine that he had gifted to Amy, unopened. Getting drunker by the minute, he started leaving notes for Amy. During one, he looked out of the window again and the men with the dog did the same again. The next time Michael looked through the blinds, the men in suits had gone, which made him panic even more, and he requested that Amy contact Vishwathi Ramadoss immediately if he was not in his office in the morning. He became convinced he was hearing things, and opened another bottle of wine, consoling himself that at least he was really drunk.Season 3, Reel #6: March 24, 1954 By the 29th, he had convinced himself that he wasn't being followed, although he later discovered that he had indeed been the victim of intimidation tactics.Season 3, Reel #7: March 29, 1954 On one of the break-ins at either his house or his office in mid-April, a window was smashed. Michael noted that the men in suits and their "idiot dog" weren't even being careful any more. He also believed they were behind threats on his wife in the form of cutting holes in her dresses, around the left breast.Season 3, Reel #8: April 20, 1954 Seven years later in 1961, Michael remarked that after he shot down Amy's proposal to implement the Institute, he and Vivienne took security measures in case the conflict between he and Ramadoss (who supported the project) became personal again. There were no more break-ins, but they did notice a number of smoking men tailing them.Season 3, Reel #10: June 21, 1961 Watching the Cradle At Sandpoint, Freya met a woman named Rosie Morales who discovered she was pregnant and decided she wanted to keep her child. Her husband David, however, registered the pregnancy in accordance with the law and Rosie's efforts to claim a false report proved fruitless. She began to see men with unpleasant dogs following her, and had to quit her job and make a run for it. In the mountains, she gave birth to her daughters, Elizabeth and Silvia, and they sustained themselves. However, men with unpleasant dogs came to find them, and pursued them for the next four years, forcing them to move a total of seven times. Rosie eventually confronted David, and although he denied reporting their location, he agreed to leave, and she was able to escape with her daughters.Season 4, Cassette #2: Autumn 1993 References Category:Motifs Category:Organisations